Slick production and heartfelt songwriting unites California four-piece 4AM, as they rise high on the strength of their colourful and engaging debut EP Relax Your Mind.
Blending catchy hooks and heavy grooves with dreamy synths and uplifting visuals and performances, the band have captured a sound of their own – celebrating unity and offering an impressive collection of originals; one that’s fresh yet perfectly in tune with the current music landscape.
We caught an interview with 4AM to find out how the music came to be. Here’s the conversation in full.
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Hi guys – AJ, Jacob, Rich and Kai – thanks for the interview, and
huge congrats for the new release! Just to introduce yourselves, where are you based, and when did you first start making music together?
Thank you! Super excited that our first EP is finally out! We are 4AM and we’re based in LA. We’ve been making music together since 2018, so it has definitely been a long journey.
Who or what inspired you to start writing and performing?
Between the 4AM of us lol, there are almost too many inspirations to list… Pop, RnB, Hip Hop, Alt-rock, Jazz, even Gospel… We try to draw inspiration from wherever we can.
Are any of you vocally or musically trained, or have you just
developed your abilities over time?
We all grew up around music, or musicians, and fell in love with creating
at a pretty young age, but none of us really received formal training. So
saying we all developed our abilities over time is the best way to put it.
Relax Your Mind is beautiful, good vibes in strong supply and stylistically versatile – how did this one come to be, what was your intention and how do you break up the process to feature all four of you equally?
Relax Your Mind was actually created right before Covid. Rich brought the hook idea to the studio one night, and the rest fell into place.
Our process is super free-form and changes depending on the style of the song, we usually take turns going into the booth to come up with melodies, and then we structure the song based on our favorites.
Loving the visuals for the single – how important is the video aspect of modern artistry, and do you have plans to release more in the coming months?
Thank you! It’s definitely an integral part of being an artist today. For us, videos are another way to get more of the feeling and message of the song across.
Yes! We’re working on the treatment for our next video. More visuals (and songs) will be out very soon!
New Thing shifts gears and brings in a more tropical production. How do you decide which direction to take a track in?
We knew we wanted to make something lighthearted and upbeat. Honestly we just got to the studio, Rich started playing the main melody, and the song came together naturally.
Most of our songs are written like that. We try not to force anything and go with the flow, ‘cause to us those are the best sessions.
Things then get distinctly heartfelt for Don’t Wanna Say Goodbye – what inspired this one, and what do you hope fans get from it?
In some way or another everyone has had a relationship that was hard to say goodbye to. Our goal was to give something more heartfelt to connect to and it gave us an opportunity to show another side of ourselves and our music.
Is there anything else we should know?
We want to thank everyone who’s been listening. We’re experimenting and diving into a deeper 4AM sound and can’t wait to share that with you.
Thank you for your time and the opportunity to share a little more about
4AM!
Download or stream Relax Your Mind. Check out 4AM on Instagram.
